1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to surge protection devices for protecting telecommunications related equipment and associated sensitive electrical components from transient voltage and/or current surges.
2. Prior Art
As is generally well known to those skilled in the telecommunications industry, modern telecommunications related equipment is susceptible to transient surges such as those caused by lightning strikes and other voltage/current surges occurring on the incoming power lines. During the occurrence of the lightning strikes or the voltage/current surges on the incoming power lines in a power distribution network provided by electric utility companies, the power lines may become crossed-over or applied directly to the incoming telecommunication lines carrying voice signals, data signals and the like to a users' or consumers' equipment. The voice/data signals may be used for transmitting and/or receiving signals to and from various types of office equipment, such as telephone sets, computers, facsimile machines, photocopiers, alarm devices, modems, or high-speed interface circuit devices (T-1 line, DSL network, Ethernet network, 10/100/1000 Base-T interface, etc.).
Accordingly, various types of surge protector circuits are known in the prior art which have been provided for connection to the incoming telecommunication or data lines so as to be normally non-operative but are rendered active when a voltage/current surge exceeds a predetermined limit for protecting the sensitive equipment. In the typical telecommunication network, the incoming telecommunication lines carrying the voice/data signals are fed to a telecommunication cabinet (not shown) located such as in a cell phone tower site for separating these incoming voice/data lines for interconnection to the different kinds of consumers' sensitive equipment. While there are known in the prior art of voice/data line protection devices for protecting telecommunication related equipment from transient voltage/current surges, these surge protection devices however were unable to provide over-voltage and over-current transient protection and yet maintain 1 gigabit network data rates.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a rackmount I/O signal protector assembly for protecting telecommunication related equipment and associated sensitive electrical components from transient voltage/current surges and also maintains 1 gigabit network connectivity. The present rackmount I/O signal protector assembly includes a unique 1 gigabit surge protector circuitry and has particular application in being used for interconnection between the incoming telecommunication lines carrying the voice/data signals and the different kinds of consumers' equipment.